Riley Purdy, ’25, presented original research on Swedish artist Hilma af Klint.
Riley Purdy, ’25, outside Frances M. Maguire Art Museum at Saint Joseph’s University.
Riley Purdy, ‘25, an art history major and religion minor graduate, was chosen to present original research at the fourth annual Philadelphia-Area Undergraduate Art History Research Symposium in March. Her talk was inspired by work done during a La Salle art history course.
The event, which took place at the Frances M. Maguire Art Museum at Saint Joseph’s University, featured students from colleges and universities from the Philadelphia area who shared 10-minute papers based on their own research.
Purdy’s presentation, Spiritual Evolution: The Theological Journal of Hilma af Klint, was based on research she conducted in a class taught by Mey-Yen Moriuchi, Ph.D., an associate professor in La Salle’s School of Arts and Sciences.
After learning about and researching Hilma af Klint, Purdy knew she wanted to focus her presentation on the spiritual artist, specifically the journals Klint kept throughout her life.
Hilma af Klint is one of Sweden’s most esteemed artists. She studied at Stockholm’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts where she graduated with honors in 1887. After becoming involved with spiritualism, a system of belief or religious practice based on supposed communications with spirts of the dead, Klint honed in her interests on ideas of Rosicrucianism, theosophy, and anthroposophy.
Klint showed her work all over the world, but after her passing in 1944, it took decades for her art to gain serious attention. Now, Klint’s work lives on through the research and presentations of current art historians, like Purdy.
In a recent La Salle University Art Museum social media post, Purdy mentioned that she “really likes early 20th century art, like modernism and abstract art.” But art is more than just paint and canvas. For her it’s “how someone shows their view to the world” and is also a way “to communicate and teach others.” She felt proud to have captured that in her research and presentation.
-Lily Crosley
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